Tuesday, January 27, 2009

We had another birthday celebration on Sunday the 18th. Tom Divver from Spartanburg had another one in his long, long line of birthdays on January 19.

He thought the group might be a little easy on him since it was his birthday, but we quickly reminded him that his actual birthday was still a day away and that he'd have to, "...come back tomorrow if you want us to be nice."

By the way, Shirley made some nice pictures of the group and the pretty cake that Marly labored so long and hard over (okay, she just went to the bakery), but I seem to have lost them into the black hole of my computer's memory somewhere. Anyway, here's a file photo of the birthday boy. Here's wishing you many more to come, Tom.

The weather was cold. Bob was on crutches from a recent misstep that resulted in an unexpected fracture. The crowd was small. Yet we still managed to have a lot of fun at Miller Park on Sunday the 11th of January.

Augustin made the trip over from Hickory and we had a couple of new faces who paid us a surprise visit from Charlotte. That's Steve about to point in the picture above. He and his son, Nathan, made the journey over after Philippe clued them in to our little group when Steve recently purchased some new boules.

Both he and Nathan (the young man crouching in the photo below) played well, and we ended up getting quite a few games in before darkness ended our day. Shirley managed to make a few pictures as usual, so here they are:

Shirley and Gary attended a petanque-themed birthday party at their friend Thierry's place in southeast Austin, Texas, on December 20, 2008.

Thierry is one of the most talented players in the Heart of Texas club that recently formed in the general Austin area. Besides being such a good player, he's just a real joy to be around. You can get some sense of that by the picture on the left. He's the barefoot guy front and center.

On what developed into a cold, windy Texas evening, Thierry's little get-together must have drawn around forty people-- petanqe players and non-players alike. As the saying goes, "A wonderful time was had by all." Here's wishing Thierry many happy returns.